Aastha Thakur
Published on: 31 October 2022 at 13:08 IST
The Delhi High Court barred Aqualite India Ltd and its representatives from infringing the subject designs of Relaxo Footwears Ltd till their ongoing lawsuit is settled. Before rejecting Relaxo’s request for an interim injunction, the HC division bench set aside the single judge decision that had instructed both parties to conduct a market survey.
In the prior ruling, the single judge found that Relaxo’s designs were not original and that other items with identical patterns were readily available on the market, citing a market survey report. The letter from a sales manager of the Chinese company verifying that the strap has been popular for a long time was taken into consideration by the judge as well.
The Division Bench comprising Justices Amit Mahajan & Vibhu Bakhru held that, “This court is not persuaded to accept that Aqualite India produced sufficient material for this court to conclude that the subject design is merely a trade variant and indistinguishable from known designs or a combination thereof,”
Further, the Court restrained the Aqualite India, its directors, principal officers and servants from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, advertising, importing, exporting or in any manner dealing with products infringing the subject design till the disposal of the suit.
The bench remarked that the conclusion drawn by the single judge was erred, as his conclusion lack findings that the subject design is indistinguishable from designs that were known at the time of registration, but on a prima facie opinion that products having similar designs are available in the market.
Relaxo invoked the Code of Civil Procedure to contest the May 2019 single judge order. Since 1976, Relaxo has been involved in the production and marketing of numerous types of footwear.
Relaxo registered its slipper design under The Designs Act on June 21, 2017, claiming that the slipper’s surface pattern, cuts, ridges, curves, and graphics render it novel and distinctive. However, Relaxo did not assert any rights to the exclusive use of the subject design’s colours or colour combinations.
The company also stated that its in-house design team and a British design firm called “The Footsoldiers” worked together to produce the original version of the subject design.
The footwear firm first took notice of fact that Aqualite was producing and marketing the goods that it says violated the subject design, in 2018. As a result, it approached the Delhi court for filing official lawsuit against Aqualite.
After that, the court issued an ad interim order preventing Aqualite from infringing the Relaxo subject design.